And, to be honest, we would like to add for our users. So, why haven’t we? In a word: Google.

The simple fact is that Google has not released a publish API for the Google+ network. What this means for us is that Google will not allow products like CoSchedule to publish posts to your profile pages. While we can read data from the Google+ stream, we can’t publish or schedule your messages from within the application.

This is a self-imposed limitation of Google+. It’s a huge bummer to say the least.

Developer Access

You may remember a few years back, when Twitter first started to gain popularity. One of the “secrets” to its success was an open and aggressive developer program. As developers adopted Twitter, the network gained credibility and mass appeal. Facebook is no different. Their app and developer platform is straightforward, and a tremendous part of their success. Can you imagine Facebook with out FarmVille or BeJeweled? (OK — that might be a bad example.)

Can you imagine a tool like CoSchedule not including Facebook and Twitter? Google might be missing the valuable role that the developer community plays in its future success.

Everyone Benefits

The reality is that when many social networks are brought together under one application, everyone benefits. It seems fairly obvious why this is. For example, when CoSchedule added LinkedIn publishing, my personal use of that network increased dramatically, and it did for others as well.

It is sort of like the clustering of fast food restaurants. While it sounds counterintuitive, the more you put together, the more likely they are to succeed. When you bring several together you have yourself a “destination area” rather than just a restaurant.

Completely agree but…I can only image that they want as much DIRECT interaction with Google+ as possible. Allowing apps to publish for users takes that away and makes it impossible to get them their looking at G+ live and in person. :) Just a thought. Personally, it would make my life easier if they would give in.

todaymade

That’s a legitimate point Matt. They also make the majority of their revenue from display ads. It is possible that they are protecting that model. One has to wonder if opening an API would have a better payout in the long run.

http://tarikdemirci.com/ Tarık Demirci

I agree with you. This may be the only reasonable explanation of not opening API. This decision is a deal breaker for me. The only reason I still use Plus is its Authorship feature.